HC Deb 20 November 1973 vol 864 cc1279-86

10.14 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior)

I beg to move,

That—

  1. (1) There shall be one or more standing committees, to be called Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, for the consideration of statutory instruments or draft statutory instruments referred to them.
  2. (2) Any Member, not being a member of such a Standing Committee, may take part in the deliberations of the Committee, but shall not vote or make any motion or move any amendment or be counted in the quorum.
  3. (3) Where—
    1. (i) a Member has given notice of a motion for an humble address to Her Majesty praying that a statutory instrument be annulled, or of a motion that a draft of an Order in Council be not submitted to Her Majesty in Council, or that a statutory instrument be not made, or that the House takes note of a statutory instrument, or
    2. (ii) a Minister of the Crown has given notice of a motion that a statutory instrument or draft statutory instrument be approved,
    a motion may be made by a Minister of the Crown at the commencement of public business, that the said instrument or draft instrument be referred to such a Committee, and the question thereupon shall be put forthwith; and if, on the question being put, not less than twenty Members rise in their places and signify their objection thereto, Mr. Speaker shall declare that the noes have it.
  4. (4) Each Committee shall consider each instrument or draft instrument referred to it on a motion, 'That the Committee has considered the instrument (or draft instrument)'; and the chairman shall put any question necessary to dispose of the proceedings on such a motion, if not previously concluded, when the committee shall have sat for one and a half hours after the commencement of those proceedings; and the Committee shall thereupon report the instrument or draft instrument to the House without any further question being put.
  5. (5) If any motion is made in the House of the kind specified in paragraph 3(i) or 3(ii) of this Order, in relation to any instrument or draft instrument reported to the House in accordance with paragraph (4) of this Order, Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the question thereon; and proceedings in pursuance of this paragraph, though opposed may be decided after the expiration of the time for opposed business:

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.

I should like to commend this and the other changes on the Order Paper to the House. I shall, if necessary, speak at the end of the debate. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. It would be easier for the House to follow what is happening if there was a little less noise.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Albert Booth (Barrow-in-Furness)

I wish to speak to the motion relating to statutory instruments. It would be unfortunate if the Standing Orders of the House were to be changed on a matter affecting the rights of the House in respect of its control over delegated legislation without some assurances being sought from the Leader of the House about the extent to which there might be a forfeiture of that control.

While the motion does not distinguish between the affirmative and negative resolution procedure in so far as it makes provision by way of requiring 20 Members to rise in their places to prevent a prayer or an affirmative motion being sent upstairs to a merits Committee, the effect of preventing an affirmative motion from going upstairs will almost certainly be to ensure a debate on the Floor of the House. The effect of rejecting a motion to send a negative procedure motion upstairs does not guarantee that there will be a debate on the Floor of the House, and this is a matter upon which we need an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman tonight.

It is at least conceivable in the terms of the motion before us that, if a large number of hon. Members objected to the sending of a prayer to a merits Committee upstairs, it would still be open to the Government to let that prayer drift out of time by failing to provide time on the Floor of the House to debate it. In my view that would be totally intolerable. Therefore, the first thing I wish to ask the Leader of the House is whether he will give an assurance that, if 20 or more Members rise in their places to object to a prayer being sent upstairs to a merits Committee, he will take it to be the will of the House that that prayer should not only be debated on the Floor of the House but also that it would be debated in time.

I have noted with some interest and concern that the terms of the statutory instrument motion are slightly different from the terms of the motion that was put before the House as a Sessional Order last year in order that we might try an experiment of having merits Committees to discuss upstairs the merits of statutory instruments. The difference, if I understand it correctly, is that this statutory instrument motion would allow out-of-time prayers to be sent to a Committee upstairs for debate, and I assume that it will be impossible for such prayers to be voted upon in the House.

There are rare circumstances in which it is desirable that there should be debates upon out-of-time prayers, and there may be even rarer circumstances in which the House might desire that they should be debated in a merits Committee rather than on the Floor of the House. Those are, indeed, rare circumstances and in the overwhelming majority of cases when hon. Members table a prayer with the desire to debate it, they desire it to be debated in time and in many circumstances to reserve the right to vote upon it.

Of course this motion does not guarantee that. Therefore we require a categorical assurance that the provision allowing out-of-time prayers to be sent upstairs will not be seen by the Government or the Leader of the House as a sanction to allow prayers which are put down in time to run out of time and be shuffled upstairs for debate in circumstances in which there can be no vote on the Floor of the House.

As one who had certain reservations about the experiment carried out last session in the merits Committees, it is only fair that I should say that a number of these were an outstanding success. They have enabled Members with a specialist interest in particular prayers and instruments to debate them in Committee and have enabled Ministers to give the Committee information required by interested Members.

Having said that, I feel that in return for the sanction of sending even more statutory instruments to the merits Committee, the House has a right to expect from the Leader of the House that proper time should be made available to debate delegated legislation on the Floor of the House. I say that because it was argued in favour of the merits Committee that there was not sufficient time to deal with all the prayers and affirmative resolutions on the Floor of the House. But if that is a fair and logical argument, as I believe it to be, it should follow that, by sending a number of affirmative resolutions and prayers to the merits Committee, there should be more time on the Floor of the House to debate delegated legislation which Members wish to discuss and vote upon immediately afterwards. One of the drawbacks of having a debate upstairs in the merits Committee is that, if there is to be a vote on a prayer or on an affirmative resolution, it cannot immediately follow the debate and cannot take place earlier than the commencement of public business on the following day.

Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)

I do not wish to interrupt the tenor of my hon. Friend's argument, but it is only fair to say that that was asked for because we on this side of the House wanted to ensure that there would always be a possibility of a vote on the Floor of the House, and on the last occasion when we debated this matter the Leader of the House was kind enough to accept that request. I understand the difficulty which we are thereby in, but it arises partly because we wanted the ability to vote on the Floor of the House if need be.

Mr. Booth

I accept what my hon. Friend has said, but in agreeing to that request we were on the horns of a dilemma. If the choice was between having a vote on the Floor on the day after a debate and having no debate at all, we should obviously vote for a debate upon the Floor of the House as very much the lesser of the two evils, although neither is an ideal situation. I would still put it to the Leader of the House that, given the willingness of the House to accommodate Government business to the extent of having these prayers and affirmative resolutions taken upstairs and delaying the right to vote till the following day, there should at least be an assurance that no prayers will be allowed to drift out of time and that when the House signifies unwillingness for prayers or affirmative resolutions to be sent upstairs they will be debated upon the Floor of the House.

Back benchers in this House are very modest in their demands upon the Leader of the House for time to debate delegated legislation. Although there is a great mass of delegated legislation which is laid before the House by Ministers, especially the very complicated issues of delegated legislation which have come about as a result of the European Communities Act, it is quite remarkable how rarely Members make demands for time.

In view of all these considerations, I hope the Leader of the House will give us categorical assurances that if we pass this motion time will be found on those occasions when back-bench Members rightly demand time to debate delegated legislation on the Floor of the House, recognising that these are few in number in relation to the vast amount of delegated legislation which is laid before the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)

Before I call the right hon. Gentleman may I very tentatively suggest to the House that it might be very much for its convenience if we took with this motion the next five motions. If the House is agreeable, that would seem to me to be—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The House is not agreeable. In that case, I suggest that we take with this motion the next two motions: That Standing Order No. 60 (Constitution of Standing Committees) be amended, in line 7, by inserting, after the word 'committed' the words 'and statutory instruments or draft statutory instruments referred'. That Standing Order No. 62 (Nomination of Standing Committees) be amended, in line 10, by inserting at the end thereof the words 'or for the consideration of statutory instruments or draft statutory instruments referred to it' These two motions are entirely consequential upon the one we are now discussing.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-on-Tyne, Central)

One of the worrying things about our system of government has been the tremendous amount of delegated legislation which is made by civil servants and which Ministers do not scrutinise as it ought to be scrutinised. Its volume is so great that the House does not have time to scrutinise it.

Both last year and this year there have been many complaints during questions on business and at other times about the fact that many prayers were tabled which were not debated until they were out of time. The Leader of the House usually found time to debate them, but often they were out of time. I regard this as most undesirable.

The House should have the opportunity to pray against a statutory instrument. To meet this situation the experiment involving the merits Committees was begun. We debated this matter in December last year and the Standing Committees were established in March. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) that the experiment has worked reasonably well. A total of 17 statutory instruments has been submitted to those committees and it is sensible to make the experiment permanent. Indeed, the purpose of the motion is to embody these arrangements within our Standing Orders.

The first point I wish to make relates to prayers that are out of time. I take it that the wording of paragraph (3)(i)— or that the House takes note of a statutory instrument"— enables a prayer out of time to be committed to the merits Committee. Perhaps the Leader of the House will confirm this when he replies. Perhaps he will also confirm that in this case it will be possible, when the debate has taken place in the Committee for a vote to be taken on the Floor of the House. It is very important that hon. Members have that right.

Secondly, I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give an assurance that he will continue the procedure of securing agreement through the usual channels before putting a motion to the House to commit a statutory instrument to a Committee upstairs. If that assurance is given, I recommend my hon. Friends to support the motion. I take it that the amendments to Standing Orders Nos. 60 and 62 are consequential upon the motion.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. Prior

Perhaps I may reply immediately to the three points raised by the right hon. Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). I can give him the assurance he seeks in regard to paragraph 3(i). The answer is "Yes". The amendments to Standing Orders Nos. 60 and 62 are no more than consequential as a result of the motion.

The right hon. Gentleman said that 17 statutory instruments were dealt with in this way last Session. After we tabled the motion last December, the various Committees were set up in March. Hon. Members thought that this was a useful experiment, and we wished to confirm the experiment by its inclusion in Standing Orders.

I give the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) the undertaking that we shall use this procedure only after it has been agreed through the usual channels. That is an important point which worked well last Session.

The hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness, who rightly takes a great interest in these matters, asked whether I am prepared to give an undertaking that all motions on which 20 hon. Members rise in their places can be debated on the Floor of the House. Although I shall consider this matter, I must say that by agreeing that a statutory instrument should be debated upstairs we increase the opportunities and chances for important debates to take place on the Floor of the House. To that extent, if a matter is important enough for 20 hon. Members to rise in their places, I should have thought it most unlikely that the House would not find time for a debate.

On the other hand, I do not want to commit myself 100 per cent. to this because all we are trying to do is to say that a statutory instrument or prayer stands no less chance of being debated on the Floor of the House under the new arrangements than it did under the old arrangements. In fact it probably stands a better chance now because of more such measures going upstairs than before. There has never been any absolute guarantee that a debate would take place in time on the Floor of the House. If statutory instruments are important, time generally has to be found for them. I do not want to change the practice in any way and I would like to see how we get on.

In so far as we send more statutory instruments upstairs to the merits Committees, this will give more time on the Floor of the House for important matters and it may from time to time mean that we can all get home at a more reasonable hour. That may not be a major consideration but it is an important one in that people outside do not understand why the House of Commons has to go on to ridiculous hours in the morning. This is one method by which we can at least try to conduct our business on a rather more rational basis.

We will, of course, agree to send upstairs only statutory instruments which it has been agreed on both sides of the House should go upstairs. That would give us more time for considering the really controversial ones on the Floor of the House. I will do my best, as Leader of the House, to see that those controversial issues are given time on the Floor of the House, in time. I would not want to go further than that. I hope that we can pass the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered, That Standing Order No. 60 (Constitution of Standing Committees) be amended, in line 7, by inserting, after the word 'committed' the words 'and statutory instruments or draft statutory instruments referred'.—[Mr. Prior.]

Ordered, That Standing Order No. 62 (Nomination of Standing Committees) be amended, in line 10, by inserting at the end thereof the words or for the consideration of statutory instruments or draft statutory instruments referred to it'——[Mr. Prior.]